Renault first e-car, Fluence ZE, will be available from £17850 after the government's £5000 subsidy when it will go sale next year, the automaker announced.

The £5,000 e-car grant by the UK Government will make Fluence ZE the most affordable electric car in the country. The Fluence ZE is a five-seat, four-door saloon that is expected to arrive by the spring of 2012.

Renault also claimed that the upcoming Fluence Z. E. would cost £855 less than the similarly equipped Megane Hatch Dynamic TomTom.

The flagship model Fluence offers 95hp of power, a generous 226Nm of torque and has a 115-mile range. However, it is still unclear how far the cheapest electric car will go.

In Australia, Fluence ZE will be available with a price tag of around $30,000.

Meanwhile Better Place showcased the first of 20 Better Place battery-switching stations planned for Denmark over the next year. The inaugural of the first battery swap station in Gladsaxe, near Copenhagen, was conducted on a Renault Fluence Z. E.

Better Place will allow e-car drivers to have their old batteries swapped for completely recharged batteries at any station. The service will consume merely 2 minutes.